Carex fuliginosa Schkuhr

Desjardins, Émilie, Lai, Sandra, Payette, Serge, Dubé, Martin, Sokoloff, Paul C., St-Louis, Annie, Poulin, Marie-Pier, Legros, Jade, Sirois, Luc, Vézina, François, Tam, Andrew & Berteaux, Dominique, 2021, Survey of the vascular plants of Alert (Ellesmere Island, Canada), a polar desert at the northern tip of the Americas, Check List 17 (1), pp. 181-225 : 197-198

Carex fuliginosa Schkuhr

Syn.: Carex fuliginosa subsp. misandra (R. Br.) Nyman

Figure 7A

Materials examined. CANADA – Nunavut • Ellesmere Island, CFS Alert; 82°30′25″N, 062°36′45″W; 24 m a.s.l.; 8 Aug. 2019; habitat: wetland on the margins of a small river, with peat and till as substrates, dominated by Alopecurus magellanicus and moss; QFA 0635566 • same locality; 82°27′37″N, 062°51′53″W; 16 m a.s.l.; 20 Jul. 2019; habitat: wetland on the margins of a lake, with peat and till as substrates, dominated by moss, Eriophorum scheuchzeri , and Eriophorum triste ; QFA 0635567.

Identification. Plants 4–13 cm high; herbaceous; caespitose. Fibrous roots present. Stems 3.5–11.5 cm long; erect or ascending; glabrous. Leaves basal and cauline; alternate. Sheath margins scabrous. Ligule absent or inconspicuous. Basal leaf blades 20–45 mm long, 2–4 mm wide; linear; flat or folded; curled; abaxial and adaxial surfaces both glabrous; margins scabrous. Inflorescence a raceme, with 2–4 spikelets; 12–40 mm long. Bracts shorter than the inflorescence; 8–32 mm long. Lateral spikelets pistillate or sometimes gynecandrous; pedunculate; inclined or pendent. Terminal spikelets bisexual; gynecandrous; pedunculate; inclined. Pistillate scales 2.5–4.0 mm long, 0.8–1.5 mm wide; lanceolate; purplish brown, with hyaline margins or paler in color (sometimes midvein paler in color); apices acute or acuminate. Staminate scales 3.2–3.6 mm long, 0.8–1.3 mm wide; oblanceolate; pinkish purple or brownish purple, with hyaline margins; apices acute or acuminate. Perigynium 3.0–4.5

mm long, 0.7–1.4 mm wide; pyriform or lanceoloid; green or pale brown proximally and dark purple apically; surface glabrous; margins scabrous; apices beaked, bidentate. Androecium with 3 stamens and 1.8–2.4 mm long anthers. Gynoecium with 1 style and 3 stigmas.

Among the 12 Carex species present on Ellesmere Island with compound spikes ( GBIF 2020), Carex fuliginosa can be differentiated by the following: pedunculate and mostly unisexual spikelets (in contrast to C. marina Dewey and C. maritima Gunnerus with only bisexual, sessile spikelets); terminal gynaecandrous spikelet (in contrast to terminal staminate spikelet in C. atrofusca Schkuhr , C. capillaris Linnaeus subsp. fuscidula (V.I. Kreczetovicz ex T.V. Egorova) Á. Löve & D. Löve , C. glacialis Mackenzie , and C. membranacea Hooker ); 2.5– 5.0 mm long pistillate scales (in contrast to C. krausei Boeckeler with 1.6–2.1 mm long pistillate scales); fused perigynum margins (in contrast to open perigynum margins in C. simpliciuscula Wahlenberg ); and three stigmas (in contrast to two stigmas in C. aquatilis var. minor , C. bigelowii Torrey ex Schweinitz subsp. bigelowii , and C. saxatilis Linnaeus ; Saarela et al. 2020).